One provider dominates the US market for search engines. Most people would probably guess that it is Google. Figure 20.1 shows that in the US Google had 79.88 per cent of the market for desktop searches in August 2016 . Two other providers, Bing and Yahoo, had much smaller market shares, while others including AOL and DuckDuckGo shared just 1.88 per cent of the market. Google generates revenue by selling online advertising services including the delivery of targeted ads online. In 2015, Google generated US $74500 million in revenue and made a profit of US $16300 million. Google has been criticised recently in many countries for avoiding the payment of tax on its profits. For example, in 2014, the company transferred 11700 million to Bermuda in an effort to minimise the taxes it had to pay on its income. This transfer meant that Google avoided paying tax on much of its foreign income. Google paid just 2.8 million in taxes which was 0.024 per cent on the 11700 million in revenue. Many people in the world pay up to 25 per cent tax, or more, on their own personal income! Google was also fined US\$22.5 million recently because it 'placed an advertising tracking cookie on the computers of Safari users who visited sites within Google's DoubleClick advertising network' (Federal Trade Commission, 2012). This broke a privacy agreement. When powerful firms like Google dominate markets, it is often difficult for the authorities to challenge their 'misdemeanours'. Although it has to be said that Google did not break any laws with its tax avoidance. One of the possible benefits of market domination is that large powerful firms can invest heavily in research and development (R\&D). Google spent US\$12280 million on R\&D in 2015. Google also has a reputation for being an innovative company and leading the market in product development. 1 What evidence is there to suggest that Google is a monopolist? 2 Using an example from this case, describe one possible advantage of monopolies for consumers. 3 Using examples from this case, discuss the possible disadvantages of a single firm dominating the market. A Figure 20.1 US desktop search engine market shares, August 2016 (\%)